Love Your Lawn (And The Earth, Too)

Maintaining a lush, healthy lawn without resorting to harsh chemicals is no easy task. Fortunately, you don’t have to have a supremely green thumb to keep your lawn naturally vibrant.

According to Paul Tukey, author of The Organic Lawn Care Manual, a truly “green” lawn requires patience, diligence and, most importantly, a pair of blinders. “Most people use herbicides because they’re worried about what their neighbor’s thinking,” says Tukey, who is also the founder of SafeLawns.org, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting natural lawn care. “You have this aesthetic expectation that gets out, this ‘You’re not fit to live in the neighborhood if you let dandelions grow on the lawn.’”

So forget the neighbors and embrace these chemical-free and resource-reducing suggestions for a natural — and beautiful — lawn.

Apply organic fertilizer … and wait.

Commercial fertilizers spoil lawn owners by producing overnight greenness. Organic fertilizers work by feeding the soil, not the plant, and so it takes weeks before the blades absorb those new nutrients.

“Until your soil is brought back to life with earthworms and all kinds of microscopic organisms that you don’t even think about, your lawn is not going to turn green,” says Tukey.